


Nadia Sy VS. Tommy Potts and The School™ (2020)

by inkyandness



Category: Hot Guy P.I. (Comic), Hot Guy P.I. (Webcomic)
Genre: Everyone Thinks They're Together, Fluff, Gen, Law School, M/M, Platonic Dads, do something with the raddest women Karina pleaseee, head empty, in that law is present at school, no brain cells, or I'll make things up myself, original male character (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23890444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyandness/pseuds/inkyandness
Summary: “Look, you don’t have to come with me, I really didn’t mean to interrupt the case.” Nando said, sitting in the weird uncomfortable office chairs that always seemed to be in the administration offices at schools.“I don’t mind,” Schmidt shrugged, “I’m just kind of curious, Nadia always seemed to be so well-behaved.”“Wait, are you here just because you’re nosy?”(Or, in which Nadia gets sent to the principal's office)
Relationships: Schmidt/Nando
Comments: 7
Kudos: 115





	Nadia Sy VS. Tommy Potts and The School™ (2020)

“Look, you don’t have to come with me, I really didn’t mean to interrupt the case.” Nando said, sitting in the weird uncomfortable office chairs that always seemed to be in the administration offices at schools.

“I don’t mind,” Schmidt shrugged, “I’m just kind of curious, Nadia always seemed to be so well-behaved.”

“Wait, are you here just because you’re nosy?”

Schmidt looked to the side for a moment before saying, “aren’t you going to tell me what happened after all of this is over anyhow?”

“That’s not the point.” Nando sighed. He seemed tired. It was like just being inside the office was wearing on him, for whatever reason. “Nadia is a good kid. I wouldn’t call her an angel, of course, but, she’s never gotten in trouble at school before.”

Schmidt made the simultaneously spontaneous and calculated move to pat him on the shoulder. “Well then. Cheer up. I’m sure this is all a big misunderstanding. She probably just missed some homework assignments and they’re worried about her falling behind, is all.”

“You get how that’s not better, right?”

“It’s better than her committing a crime, right? Or assaulting another student?”

“She wouldn’t do stuff like that in the first place.”

Schmidt smiled, “then you really do have nothing to worry about.”

\------

“Your daughter, Nadia, assaulted another student.”

Sometimes Nando’s life felt like a joke. Not a cosmic one, that would be assuming that he had the same worth to some sort of cosmic deity as much as a John Mulaney comedy special did to him, and that was just too much value to think he had in the larger eyes of the universe.

More like the kind of joke that gets you a three part webcomic, now that was something he could manage, but come on.

There he was, sitting in a blandly decorated office with a gruff, shrewd old man, with his daughter in the chair next to him, pointedly not making any eye contact, though he could tell that she had been crying, and Schmidt stood behind him, standing as there were no more chairs in the room.

He should’ve told Schmidt to wait in the administrator’s office, maybe tell him to play with the gumball machine they had by the window, but he had to follow, and who was he to keep this man in check? He wasn’t his brother’s keeper, much less his friend’s keeper.

Still, maybe it was because he hated to admit it, but, he was kind of glad Schmidt was there.

It wasn’t his first time in the principal’s office, just the first time because of his daughter. He wasn’t a bad kid, at least he didn’t think he was, he was just kind of a bad student. Nobody knew why. He didn’t know why. Was it inattention? Was it five different mental illnesses in a trench coat? Was he just kind of stupid? Who was to say, really, especially considering nobody could agree on any one thing. 

After a while, he became disaffected by the whole thing. Failing a math test in sixth grade made him feel like his heart was being ripped to shreds and the world was falling apart around him, but by eleventh grade, he and his buds made it a contest almost, to see who could get the lowest score, while still trying their damndest. 

Something that really used to worry him greatly became a joke, so why not clown around if it seemed to help him cope? That was sort of his motto about the whole thing. But, no matter what happened, no matter if he was only slightly depressed about his failures or absolutely distraught, being sent to the office always made him feel worse. 

As if his own conscience hadn’t berated him enough for having a head full of rocks, now multiple adults were going to.

He didn’t have to imagine what Nadia was going through, he just wished he had had a friend to go through this with when he was her age.

It was nice to have one now.

“Mr...What was it again?”

“Mr. Sy, sir.” Nando responded. He wanted to seem attentive, but also mad and disinterested, and all these things at once, just to get this guy off his daughter’s back.

“Mr. Sy, during her 6th period gym, your daughter  _ bit  _ another student.”

“WHAT?” Nando and Schmidt said at the same time, in utter disbelief. Nando turned to Nadia, she seemed to retract in on herself even more. 

“Nadia, what happened?” Nando asked, distraught. Nadia looked at him for the first time since he had arrived there, and broke down into tears, before launching herself into his arms. He hesitantly wrapped them around her as she sobbed.

“Because she broke the skin, the boy had to be sent to the hospital. Assault in of itself would normally lead to in-school detention or suspension, but given the severity of the injury, you’re going to have to come up with a good reason for her not to be expelled, Mr. Sy.”

Schmidt nodded, and knelt down to Nadia’s side. Nando still seemed to be processing things, shaken by present circumstances. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Nando was minutes away from the same nervous breakdown Nadia seemed to be having.

“In her defense, human bites are only dangerous in that they carry a high risk of infection. A matter like that could’ve easily been handled at the nurse’s office.”

“We didn’t want to take that chance.”

“What else are the school nurses going to do? Distribute Advil and bandaids and recommend emergency room trips over a spider bite?”

“...That sounds oddly specific.” Nando muttered.

The principal sighed. “Control your husband, Mr. Sy. Hearing your daughter’s side of the story at this point is only for the sake of courtesy at this point.”

“Yes sir.” Schmidt said, returning to Nadia’s side. Her sobbing seemed to subside as she mumbled.

“...nobody else was going to...what was I supposed to do...he-”

Nando pulled Nadia out of the hug.

“Nadia, can you tell us what happened?”

“A-Are you going to be mad at me?” She sniffled.

“I...don’t know.” Nando said, a little too honestly.

“We can’t promise that we won’t be mad at you,” Schmidt said, “but we can do more for you if we know what happened.”

Nadia looked at her dad, then at the principal, then down at her hands. Her fingernails were already bitten down to the quick, but she picked at them anyhow.

“There’s this boy in my grade, Tommy Potts. Basketball player. Likes Drake way too much.”

“You’ve mentioned him before.”

“He…” Nadia looked to the principal, then back down at her hands. “He’s known for other things, too. He’s one of the gym leaders, which means he has access to the keys for the gym supplies and locker rooms, which means he gets to leave the gym five minutes early to unlock the locker rooms.”

Nadia took a shaky breath. “It was just a rumor, but, people would say that he’d hide in the main office in the girl’s locker room, and...take photos of the girls changing. Distribute them, like some sort of weird 8th grade black market of…What do you call it when you take pictures of somebody without their permission?”

“Creepy?”

“Yes, but technically speaking, it’s voyeurism.”

“Voyeurism, yeah.”

“Well, we’re in our swimming unit now, and, well, he’s basically hit the jackpot in that respect. Of course, nobody can really prove that he’s been doing it. Even if the cameras spot him, he’s still technically doing what the school asked of him, so we can’t really say he’s not. Everybody always tells us that that’d be slander, and we’d be ruining his future, so we kinda kept our mouths shut.”

“It probably would’ve stayed that way if I didn’t catch a camera flash from the window. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but then, I saw it again. I left the locker room, talked to my friends for a little bit, tried to put the whole thing behind me, but then I saw Tommy Potts...with his phone...in an area where you’re not supposed to have electronics….with a crowd of boys around him.

“Of course, you don’t have to be smart to put that one together, so I walked up to them where they were standing next to the diving board, and I pulled a sleight of hand trick on him, a, you know,”

Nadia proceeded to mime her sleight of hand trick, and Nando couldn’t help but be impressed. Worried about where his daughter was learning this, but still impressed.

“So I have his phone, and I’m barely able to fend him off while he’s following me around, trying to get his phone back, but...I saw everything. He has pictures of Sydney, and, and Jasmine, and  _ me  _ on it,”

Schmidt and Nando were very alarmed at such a statement.

“Of course, that’s when he grabs his phone back, and holds it over his head. He begins deleting the photos, saying that “nobody will ever believe me.” I know he’s already sent those photos, I know it, I just  _ know  _ it. Why else would those boys trail him around?”

“I got desperate, and, and frantic. That was my evidence he was deleting, and I knew that if I tried to come to any adult  _ without  _ that evidence, I’d be treated like a charity case. So I tried to jump for it and nab it, but he already had like six inches on me, so that wasn’t working, so I….kinda operated on impulse.”

Nadia scratched at her cheek, sheepishly.

“I figured that if I was able to distract him with something else, I might be able to get him to drop the phone, or maybe if I just vibe-checked him hard enough, he might not mess with anybody else again? My thought process in that moment just was not that great, so after six or seven tries of jumping, I stepped back, and began to walk away. I got pretty far too, before I ran back and sank my teeth into his shoulder. He dropped the phone on the pool deck, but we both toppled into the pool.”

“I was able to let go pretty soon and float to the surface first, but when I grabbed his phone, he pulled me back under.”

“I was able to keep my grip on his phone, luckily, but of course, he told the coach, and I got marched into the locker room to change and come here straight after.” Nadia sounded more exhausted than anything else after the story ended.

Nando gave her another hug and a kiss on the forehead. Schmidt could tell there was a thousand things he wanted to say to her, perhaps “of course I’m not mad at you” or “I’m proud of you, kiddo” or perhaps “wow, we should bite more sexual harassers,” but a simple smile seemed to be enough at the moment.

Especially considering there were other things to be dealt with first.

“Miss Sy, do you still have that cell phone?”

Nadia nodded. “I do, but I think it’s a bit too waterlogged for you to do anything with right now.”

“Good, because we can add stealing another student’s property onto the list, now.”

“WHAT?” Nadia yelled, righteous anger of her own accord.

“This is getting out of hand,” Nando said through gritted teeth.

“Is it, Mr. Sy? There’s nothing to prove that anything your daughter says is true, it’s against this student’s fourth amendment rights to search his cell phone without probable cause.”

“Then  _ don’t  _ search _ his  _ phone then! I know his friends, I know their names, if he’s sending the photos to them, there’s gotta be a record of it in their message history.” Nadia said.

“This isn’t an official investigation, we have no reason to investigate this case in the slightest, especially considering your previous offenses.”

“At this point, being expelled sounds like the favorable option.” Schmidt muttered.

“Mr. Flores, is it? Do you have anything to say on the matter?”

“I’m not, but I do.”

“He’s not my-”

“Are you trying to say that an act of self-defense is worse than a potential child pornography ring at your institution?”

“That’s not the issue here.”

“Hmm. So you haven’t been telling your students  _ not  _ to tell teachers about students committing acts of criminal conduct?” Schmidt smirked.

“We haven’t said a thing like that at all!”

“So where did Nadia here get the idea that her complaints wouldn’t be worth the school board’s time?”

“Whatever feelings she has are not my fault.”

Nando joined in. “Yeah, even disregarding the whole potential skeeviness of the ownership and distribution of that kind of conduct, isn’t there already a law in place against taking photos without others permission?”

“Well-”

“And let’s just go down that road and say, in legal terms, Nadia  _ did  _ assault a student, I’ll walk with you to that pier, the responsibility then falls on the one who is assaulted to  _ not escalate the situation.  _ Pulling Nadia underwater again could be considered assault the same way the bite was.”

“If you’re so worried about the legalities of searching a student’s phone, I think you have bigger problems to worry about.” Nando said, with a small smile. Nadia seemed almost amazed that her dad and his friend were willing to bat for her at all. It made her not just happy, but heard. Which is a nice feeling to have when you’re a kid.

“Regardless of all that, Thomas Pott’s “questionable photo ring” as you seem to call it-”

“-they’re underaged, call it what you want, but you’re dancing around the issue-”

“-Is still unproven.” The principal sighed. “I know Thomas. He plays center on the school’s basketball team, he and his parents are involved with the school and the community, he volunteers every other weekend. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Oh, so his parents are huge donors, gotcha.” Nando said dryly. 

“That’s not-”

The seventh period bell rang.

“Oof, I don’t know about you, Nando, but I don’t think we’re getting anywhere like this.” Schmidt pulled out his phone, and began pressing buttons. “I think it’s time we consulted our legal options.”

The principal’s face paled, visibly. “You’re bluffing.”

Schmidt shrugged. “I mean, if the “questionable photo ring” is really a thing, then think of this as just cutting to chase. Speedrunning it, if you will.”

“Joey owes me a favor, anyhow.”

“Not...Joey Fitzgerald?”

“The very same.”

The principal looked to be sweating at that. 

“Two week’s suspension.”

“A week and a legitimate investigation of the student Tommy Potts, and his crimes.”

The principal seemed to consider this.

“Very well.” He nodded. Schmidt and the principal shook on this. Schmidt made a show of wiping his hand on his coat soon afterwards, though Nando knew this was less of a power move, and more of Schmidt being blunt and unable to hide his disdain for having to touch the man’s weird clammy hands.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

\-------

Schmidt, Nando, and Nadia walked out of the school as if they were walking down the courthouse steps. They were victorious, all in all.

“Were you actually going to call a lawyer.”

“No...I was typing into a calculator the whole time.”

“Do you even actually know Joey? It sounds like she’s more than just Instagram famous.”

“She’s my roommate.” Schmidt shrugged.

“What?? And you just...Don’t have her number??”

“We...text?”

Nando looked more tired than he ever had in his life, and it was only because of this 15 second interaction.

“Can we go get ice cream to celebrate?”

“Your suspension?” Nando asked. He shrugged. “Sure, why not, kiddo? You’ve earned this.”

Nadia looked all the more eager as she ran ahead, knowing the ice cream shop was just a few blocks away. Nando and Schmidt continued to walk at their own pace. It’s not like Nadia could buy ice cream without them anyhow.

“So, what, did Joey, your famous prosecutor roommate teach you about law?” Nando asked.

“Actually, yes. When she’s around, she spends a lot of her time talking and recording herself, studying up for trials and whatnot. All hours of the day and night, basically. She’s gone a lot, so when I miss her, sometimes I listen to those recordings, and after the thousandth time, it kinda sinks in.”

“That’s...sweet?” Nando asked.

Schmidt shrugged. “She’s one of my best friends, if I wasn’t able to keep her in my life in some way, I’d feel...Bad.”

Nando nodded. “I guess I can understand that.”

“I don’t have anything of yours to really remind me of you, but I’m just lucky enough that I get to work with my best friend everyday.”

“I thought you said Joey was gone all the time?

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Because what's better than the "parents defending their child when they get in trouble at school" trope? I don't see it very often, but I LIVE for that kind of protectiveness.
> 
> I just want to say that by publishing this fic, Hot Guy PI will officially have more fanfics than Hoodwinked! (2005) will have. I don't know what that means for any of us personally, but I think it's a nifty unit of measurement if that's really what we're going by.
> 
> Also Karina, please please PLEASE give me something to do with Joey and Chandler. I love those badass lady lawyers, and if they are doomed to the background forever, so be it, but be aware of the strange canon I'll be forced to construct for them from the ashes of the little content we already have for them. Remember this as a grim warning, but also just a casual request that you don't have to comply to whatsoever.
> 
> juliastartoons.tumblr.com  
> https://ko-fi.com/juliastartoons


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